Julia Bainbridge

Yahoo! Food editor Julia Bainbridge went to Boston University to study journalism, but she graduated with a degree in cultural anthropology instead. “It just felt like I wasn’t really learning how to be a journalist,” she said. “I wanted to report.”

Despite dropping her journalism major to study cultural anthropology, Julia remained heavily involved in journalism through work for school papers and internships. “All my extracurricular energy was focused towards journalism,” she said. She landed her first journalism internship in San Francisco by Googling area newspapers and going door-to-door with her résumé. “I don’t think you could do that today,” she said.

“A lot of these people rolled their eyes, but I think a couple people were like, ‘Man, this chick has balls.’”

After taking a revelatory food anthropology course during her senior year, Julia decided to go to culinary school and become a food writer. She moved to San Francisco, which she said “was as much an education to me at the time as culinary school was.” Degree in hand, she moved to New York City without a plan. “[For] even the most confident person, it really rattles you, not being employed and trying to convince people of your worth...it’s so hard to break in,” she said. Listen to the episode to learn how Julia went from moving to New York City without a job to working for Food & Wine, Condé Nast Traveler, Bon Appétit, and Yahoo! Food.

Highlights

Use your connections: In the end, connections are the most important thing. I have never had a job since I got my first one, even my first one, I have never applied to a job or heard about it first through some kind of posting. It’s always been from someone I know.

It’s okay to network: It’s funny, I had other friends at the time who didn’t use any connections through their families for their work because they had a chip on their shoulder about, “No, I don’t want to do this on my own.” Use them, I’m telling you, use them. You still are getting it on your own...Use any leg up you have.

Be proactive: I think doing is the most important thing. So, not thinking about doing, but just doing...Send that e-mail. Ask that person to coffee so you can pick their brains. You’ll learn how to do it better as time goes on, but you have to start somewhere. And it’s so easy to worry and get inside your head about whether or not you’re doing it the right way. But just do it.